Devoted dad pops 81 matches up his nose after kids beg him to break a world record

A devoted dad made his kids’ dream come true by becoming a record breaker.

Martin Ströby (Sweden) says his two children were flicking through the pages of Guinness World Records when they confessed it would be “so cool” to see him in there.

And he’s one step closer to making that a reality after stuffing a record number of matches up his nose.

Martin, 42, officially claimed the title for most matches held in the nose in August with a total of 81, far surpassing the previous record of 68.

He told us of his kids’ dream: “At first I thought ‘I’m not good enough at anything to be the best in the world’, but after my children showed me all the different world records I began thinking I might be able to find one I had a shot at breaking, thus began the search for a suitable one. 

“After having looked through the book I found the record I was in search for - at least one I thought I had a chance of breaking.”

Martin did a test run on one nostril, finding he could fit 35 inside, and that spurred him on to go for it.

He said: “After doing the trial run, I discovered I could both stretch my nostrils a lot and also ignore the pain from putting all those matches in there, so I would say I’m a natural.

“I did however try to find a good technique because matches kept falling out of my nostrils. Three inserted matches meant one or two falling out. I did some more trial runs and did eventually find a technique I could utilize to minimize the number of matches falling out.”

Martin had a bit of a crowd gather around him after he set up his very own record-breaking area outdoors.

But it was his son and daughter who he was most hoping to impress.

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“As a father I want my children to look up to me in the same way I look up to my father who has taught me more than I can write down,” Martin said.

“I try to teach them all the wonders of nature and mathematics, but also how one can be a friendly and compassionate human being. 

“With that in mind, I really wanted to make them proud and think they have a cool dad and a person to look up to.”

Martin’s kids do indeed think he’s incredibly cool now that he has a record, although they were a little confused about how he could fit so many matches into his “regular-sized nostrils”.

For now, Martin isn’t sure if he’ll try to break another record but he’s almost certain his kids will manage to convince him to do it again.